8/15/2007

Seodaemun prison was open to the public today and as I write this posting various patriotic performances are underway on the grounds of a prison where the prisoners of the Japanese colonial regime and the postwar dictators of South Korea lived, died, and were horribly tortured.

Cutouts of “Righteous Army” fighters could be found near the entrance with removable heads so that any patriotic visitor could pose for a patriotic picture.

If the poorly armed righteous armies, which were sometimes hard to distinguish from violent bandits when they raided villages for food, are not your kind of independence fighter, you can also pose with other pro-independence terrorists1 found elsewhere on the prison grounds.

For a discussion on current definitions of this contentious word see this Wikipedia article or see some of the Google offerings. For more on a recent controversy over the use of this term see this article and the response of the accused, which also mentions the changes in meaning of the word across time. The response to the response can be found here. [↩]

One Response to “Now you can join the Righteous Army”

[...] Hall; political leaflets; comfort woman protest outside Japanese embassy; opening day of Seodaemun prison where Korean political prisoners were tortured during the colonial period; and anti-China placards. [...]